Process Flexibility | Zeke Franco’s Blog

Thinking that process is a silver bullet that can fix everything is sort of like early economic theories that presumed that accurate predictions of markets can be made without incorporating human behavior. You need to factor in the people and the business culture using the process. Many, if not most software businesses are conducted in a waterfall way even though the product they are making may be built using an agile process. The power of agile as well as the meaning of the word implies flexibility, which is why switching an IT department to an agile process alone doesn’t make for a successful software product. For the business to optimize it’s success it needs to listen to the feedback and adapt it’s products, goals and sometimes even budgets.

Communication Over Process

As designers we are generally judged by our ability to output artifacts of our work. Pixel perfect Photoshop files, task-flow models, wireframes, specifications, personas and usability reports. The documents’ goal is to communicate design. But generally designers are tasked to hand over one of these documents before a certain date. The goal should be to communicate what needs to be communicated so other people in our team can do the work they need to do. Sometimes a document will serve this purpose, but many times it’s just a simple conversation or a presentation, a rough sketch, design studio or a finger pointing to something on a screen.